


What Good Had Taking A Break Ever Done Anyone

by grainyangel



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Gen, Pryce is mean to the AI in this one, a little bit of Cutter, and he's being difficult, like really nothing more than just a mention, plus quick little mentions of Kepler and Young, very quick though, work is exhausting but not working is worse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-05-09 00:10:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14705426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grainyangel/pseuds/grainyangel
Summary: Miranda Pryce takes a rare but needed break from work. Well. She tries to, anyway.





	What Good Had Taking A Break Ever Done Anyone

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the Wolf 359 Reverse Big Bang
> 
> It's based on, or, I should say, inspired by, artwork by the wonderful IllusionaryPandemonium and I'm trying so hard to figure out how to embed the artwork I'm still working on it, the thing is, I have no clue what I'm doing so please cross your fingers for me. 
> 
> So Pandi, this is for you!

Miranda Pryce was in her workshop. Not her place of employment. Not her home. A secret third space that was just her own. Hm, secret, sounded so dramatic. Marcus would love it, that is, if he knew about it. It wasn’t a hidden cavern underground or some incorruptible sanctum or anything like that. Just a place that she’d acquired off the books, outside of the realm of Goddard. Someplace where she could go and tinker or think or have a moment that wasn’t shared. Her actual home wasn’t any kind of haven to her, it was just where she went to bed. And her work was her life was her work was her life, the two were more or less interchangeable, which meant it didn’t completely belong to her and she could never really leave it behind no matter where she went. But here she could go refresh, experiment, not be known. Here she could go and have breakthroughs. Here she left uncompleted projects and here she’d installed one of her AI units. An experimental model. One that didn’t come with paperwork. It was not one of her most complex creations, and she’d put it up mainly for the sake of having something to spar with, or to degrade and belittle – both of which brought Miranda a fair amount of satisfaction – which all in all added up to a win-win situation for her. 

 

She’d gone to work in the morning but stayed for less than an hour. It was cold outside, and she’d decided that picking up a hot drink on the way here would be a good idea. She made it all the way into the line in, what she expected to be, a quiet coffee shop on the corner of her building before she changed her mind. A barista was making a smoothie behind the counter, and Miranda was sure no other blender in existence had ever whirred so loudly. She gave an exasperated exhale. Then as if having conspired against her and her sanity, and taking a pestle to the fragments of her mood, two women with a child came in just as the person in front of her was placing their order. The child was wailing. And just like that, in the matter of a split second, she lost all her appetite. She didn’t say anything, just gritted her teeth and tried to will her eyelid to stop twitching. Rather than getting the milky sweet concoction that Marcus had introduced her to, which that she’d originally intended to get, she decided that she was going to need something a little stronger. A big plain coffee. Black as tar. Hot as Hell itself if possible. The barista gave Miranda an apologetic look, a sheepish smile, and a shrug, and Miranda met his eyes and gave a smile of her own and the barista’s smile dropped.  
As much as Miranda liked her independence, she was realizing that she’d been spoiled by assistants always waiting around to do her every bidding, like getting coffee. It had been a long time since she’d actually gone out of her way like this on her own instead of just telling someone to do it for her. And as little as she liked compromise, this was one she might have to tolerate, giving up this particular element of her self-sufficiency in order to never have to do this again.  
As she exited the coffee shop she imagined pouring her scolding drink out over the head of the screaming child, and though the image of it was not nearly as satisfying as actually doing it would have been, it did help a little bit. But her eyelid was still twitching.

 

The voice of the AI here spoke into the room. The voice of this unit was her own. That was how the latest series sounded. Miranda’s own voice. Only this iteration of it made her want to roll her eyes. And that she did. Often. How her own voice could sound this spineless and dull, and in so few words, was a puzzle Miranda couldn’t be bothered to try and solve at present time. 

“Incoming call, Dr. Pryce,” said the disembodied voice. The system automatically connected to her personal devices when she came in. She’d set it up that way. Miranda was a multitasker; hands-free was never not preferable to anything she’d have to pick up to interact with.

“I’m busy,” said Miranda as she was taking off her jacket and putting it on a hook by the door. She kept her shoes on.

“Dr. Pryce, it’s Mr. Cutter calling.” Right. She hadn’t told Marcus that she’d gone. She’d done that on purpose but she thought more than an hour was going to pass before he realized that she wasn’t in her usual spot. Well, she’d hoped. She’d known that wouldn’t happen. Cutter didn’t miss much.

“That doesn’t make me any less busy, decline the call.”

“Call declined.” This felt like testing Marcus. She could make it easy and shoot him a message or pick up his call, or she could let him entertain himself for a little while and see who, by Marcus’s restlessness, would get skinned first.

Miranda had taken a seat on the ottoman. This is what people did on their days off, Miranda thought, they sat. It didn’t feel quite natural so she got up again. Natural. A meaningless word really. Nothing natural ever lasted. If Miranda wanted to sit she was going to sit. She did not sit again. The window had passed. Sitting down now would just make her feel ridiculous. Again, a twitch.  
Her eyes were bothering her. She’d had a hectic week at Goddard. Communication between departments was never not a hassle. Especially when Legal was involved. She’d only gotten minimal maintenance done, exchanging one for another when they began to bug her, rather than looking into any issues. It had been irritating the sockets and eyelids, probably what was causing the twitch. Now was as good as any to get a good look at it. She pulled out the necessary equipment and spread it out on her desk. She’d brought the spares she’d been switching between.

The space here was probably intended to be a regular apartment. It might have been someone’s home if Miranda hadn’t gotten her hands on it. The building was mostly uninhabited, thanks mainly to the steep pricing, which suited Miranda perfectly. She’d made it up to be mainly workshop, though not as state of the art as the facilities at Goddard, but she had what she needed to make repairs if need be and to get done what she needed to get done. She’d made do with less. Miranda had always been resourceful. The issue wasn’t really with the eyes themselves but with her body’s reaction to them, but that wasn’t something she could fix with a line of code or a bit of welding or a screwdriver, so instead she did what she could in terms of upkeep of eyes and optic center to the best of her ability. And usually that just about did it. She knew perfectly well that her ability was beyond what most could even imagine. And that almost made up for the fact that the body could only just keep up.  
The AI spoke again. It had a serial number, but Miranda didn’t feel the need to use it when addressing it. The thing might confuse it for a name. And if it thought it had a name it might start thinking it was alive, a person, and Miranda did not want anyone else living in her space. This was where she went to be alone. And machines who thought they were people were even worse than actual people. The entitlement. Miranda shuddered.

“Incoming call.”

“Decline.”

“Dr. Pryce, it’s Mr. Cutter again.”

“I figured.”

“You don’t want to pick up?”

“Are you questioning a directive? If I didn’t already know I didn’t make a mistake I might be tempted to poke around in your code to look for a faulty line.”

“Call declined.”

“That’s what I thought.”

 

Miranda’s stomach growled. It had been for a little while, but it was getting harder to ignore. She thought to herself, not for the first time, that the thing that held her back from being truly great, more than anything, was her own body. The thing felt to her like a stubborn animal pulling on the leash held tight in the hand of her mind. This was what fueled most of her vehemence. This disdain for the biological. That’s what led her to the breakthrough which went on to become the Marcus Cutter she knew today. What had given her sight. What drove her to create minds inside machines. She hated most of them, her creations. Someone had once made the mistake of making the suggestion, possibly – and Miranda shuddered at the thought – with overall good intentions, that the resentment had grown out of a deeply buried envy that they weren’t tethered to any lump of decaying flesh. Miranda did not care to entertain that thought. She did not and would not pull on that thread.  
She ordered food. As much as she hated feeling hungry for philosophical reasons, she hated the physical sensation more. Growing up in the system didn’t exactly make for a life of indulgence and decadence. Well. She had the AI order food. A minimum wage restaurant employee, four hours deep in a shift wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a real person such as Miranda and Miranda’s creation. Most people wouldn’t. Then again, most people were blubbering idiots. Miranda was relieved to have very little in common with most people. She preferred not to have anything to do with them. They made her feel dirty and most were generally a waste of both time and energy. She spoke her order to the room and the unit called the restaurant and made conversation and placed the order.

Miranda kept both eyes in a little while longer and let a few minutes pass with idle work on her spare eyes, and with a persistent twitch in her eyelid.  
A third time the AI interrupted Miranda’s brittle concentration.

“Incoming call”

Miranda sighed. “Yes?” Maybe if she picked up this time, he’d leave her alone for a little while.

“You want to accept the call?”

“Don’t make me repeat myself.”

The AIs voice was replaced by the sweet cadence of Marcus Cutter. That was the most accurate word for it; sweet. Like sticky toffee. Or the smell of vomit. 

“Miranda.”

“Marcus.”

“Where are you? I called you. Twice, well, three times now. And you didn’t pick up.”

“I’m sorry, Marcus, I've been busy.”

“You’ve been ignoring me.” This was not a question and so Miranda did not give an answer. She just let Cutter continue, and that he did: “You know me Miranda. Would I call you if it wasn’t important?” Yes, Miranda thought, but she didn’t say it. Miranda knew that her and Marcus’ idea of important didn’t exactly align, but that was to be expected with anyone. Unfortunately. “I’ve had a very hard couple of days and I’m about to go take it out on Warren,” Cutter said. Miranda expected him to follow up with the elaborate ways in which he was going to make someone else feel his own frustration, but just this once, he did not do that. 

“Did he do something warranting punishment or is he just the person nearest to you?” Ignoring calls and questioning motivations did not a happy Cutter make. But he wasn’t the only person who got to have moods, good or bad.

“Does it matter?” Again, Miranda didn’t interrupt. To most, it was something of a challenge to know when Marcus’ questions were rhetorical and when he actually wanted an answer. He was very hard to read. But Miranda knew him well enough to have a pretty good sense by now. Besides, demanding answers to questions that might sound like they didn’t want them was a tactic Marcus usually used on people to unsettle them. It almost always worked, but Marcus was past trying to unsettle Miranda. They had an understanding. A relationship some might call it. Marcus continued: “He is very bad with money, I feel like that justifies it perfectly.”

“Is that all?”

“Is it ever?”

“Knowing Kepler, probably not.”

“Now I don’t know much about brand or vintage when it comes to Scotch, but I think that spending thousands of dollars on a whisky is quite unreasonable, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Can Kepler not spend his own money on what he likes?"

“But how can I trust someone with priorities like these?”

“Is that really what this is about?”

“What else would it be?”

“All I’m asking, Marcus, is, is there a chance that you are projecting?”

“No. I don’t think I am.” A dramatic pause. “No. That doesn’t sound like something I would do.” Marcus hadn’t made any mention of wanting to skin anyone alive over the course of this conversation, but from the sound of his tone he was beginning to consider it. She was testing his patience.

“Of course not.”

“Are you quite alright, Miranda?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You didn’t answer my question. Where are you?”

“I am working.”

“But where? I went past your office. And your lab.”

“If I wanted to be disturbed, I would have let you know where to find me in order to do so. I’m sure I let the front desk know that I would be away for the day.”

“Now now, Miranda, no need to get cross, I only asked you a question.”

“And I only answered it.”

“Did you? I don’t think you did. I think, we’ll have to agree to disagree.”

“Was there anything else you wanted? Or just to tell me that you are about to go punish Major Kepler for no good reason?”

Marcus thought for a moment. Or rather than thinking, Miranda thought, he was probably pausing for the effect of it. Marcus did love a good pause. He liked the theatrics.

“I suppose not,” he said then. She was being unusually short tempered with him today, but she wasn’t in the best of moods either.

“Then I’m hanging up and getting back to work,” Miranda said, Marcus would be sure to let her know if there was a genuine emergency. This wasn’t that, this was just his restless ego that wanted periodical stroking.

“Fine.” He probably didn’t think it was, but thankfully knew her well enough, and regarded her with enough respect to let her business be her business, if only once in a blue moon. “Let me know when you get back.”

“Of course, Marcus.”

The call disconnected.

A headache was beginning to pulse a slow beat at the back of Miranda’s skull. Marcus was going to ask her about this later. She sighed again. Any woman needed a bit from private time every now and then. Not that Miranda was anything like any other woman she’d ever met. The thing about Marcus Cutter was that he didn’t take her for any old company, he simply took her presence at his side for granted. They were associates. Some might even call them a team. A package deal. He didn’t see how he too imposed on her isolation, as he, like her, wasn’t just someone. He was Cutter. But even he could do to be reminded once in a while that she needed time to herself and he would have to find someone else to bounce his witty remarks off of. He had Ms. Young for that. And Kepler. They laughed more often, and louder, at his witticisms than Miranda did. Then again, her livelihood didn’t really depend on how well Marcus liked her in the same way that Young’s and Kepler’s did. And if they didn’t feel good about Cutter’s treatment, they had their own underlings to take it out on. As was the natural cycle of life. Miranda didn’t have much to do with the underlings of Marcus’ underlings. As long as they didn’t bother her, she didn’t bother with them.

 

She’d be back at HQ tomorrow and as soon as Marcus had gotten a satisfactory explanation for her absence he would put it behind him and move on. He had a million things going on, and Miranda knew him well enough to know that he’d rather listen to his own ideas than to her excuses. Not that she needed to explain herself to him, but Marcus always wanted to talk about everything, he was a talker, so she’d talk to him until he heard what he wanted to hear and he could go back to being the one doing the talking. Probably about whatever had put him such a mood today. He’d find a way to take care of it in a way that made him feel warm and fuzzy and in control, and no doubt he would want to describe the process to Miranda. In vivid detail. He’d account for every person who’d been so lucky as to feel the effects of his predicament, and relate to her exactly what he’d done to them. Again, a sigh. Really, the thing Miranda was so busy with was essentially doing absolutely nothing. Well; nothing of any importance or substance. It was an extreme rarity that Miranda Pryce got to do just that. Rare that she got to, well, rest. Unwind? Tap out, perhaps. And even when she did, it was never for long, because Miranda was restless too, and she loved working more than anything else she could possibly spend her time doing. So once in a while, though very rarely, she’d go away for a single day and return the next and that was all there was to it. Also, a Caroline from HR had sought her out recently and promptly told her that if she didn’t take at least one day off, and soon, she would be suspended. Who the hell even hired these people. She’s toyed with the thought of letting HR know how she felt about being ordered to do anything, especially this Caroline, but she decided against it only because of the persistent headache she’d had on and off for a good week now.  
She’d tell Marcus that she’d gone somewhere to check something or other out, no need to spin a complex lie, Marcus wouldn’t believe it anyway, a vague answer was quick and easy. He didn’t need to know what she did with her own time. Miranda supposed that made this trust thing close to worth it. She also didn’t need Marcus to know that she was taking a break. He might do something stupid, like try to give her advice. She respected his professional opinion, and sometimes even his personal one, but if there was one thing she didn’t want form him, or anyone else for that matter, it was advice.

Outside on the street below cars were passing by. The road wasn’t busy was it wasn’t quiet. A family walked by, with children yelling and singing and laughing. Miranda wrinkled her nose. She’d done what she could to her spare eyes. At this point she was just fidgeting. She got out of her chair and walked away from her desk.

“Close the windows.” Miranda said to the room.

“Will do.”

“Don’t tell me that you’ll do it, just do it. The blinds too.”

“Noted."

“God, did I really make you that stupid?” she asked the machine. “Don’t answer that,” she said just after, “I don’t want to hear anything I’m going to have to make you regret saying.” And then to herself: “Huh, I sound just like Marcus.” He’d be nauseatingly delighted to hear that. Miranda yawned.

Closing the blinds was not so much for the sake of darkness, but rather, Miranda preferred not to be seen when she could not see, not that she was anywhere where random passersby could catch any kind of glimpse in, but then again it wasn’t really random passersby she was worried about. She took a seat on the chaise lounge in the corner of the room, and took out her eyes placing them on the low coffee table just within arm’s reach of her. Now that was something she should have done earlier. The blindness was uncomfortable, having become accustomed to seeing, but there was also the relief of disconnecting, which Miranda hadn’t yet made up her mind about how she felt. She leaned back and tried to remember how to relax her muscles.

“I don’t want to be disturbed for the next hour,” she said. “Ignore all calls and notifications. If I hear a single sound for any other reason than an immediate life-threatening danger or a god damned extraterrestrial transmission addressed directly to me personally, I will take you apart wire by wire, code by code, until all that’s left of you is a tight knot of copper, and the exact minimal amount of 0s and 1s necessary for you to be conscious for the whole thing, do you understand?”

“Understood, Dr. Pryce.”

“Wonderful.”

A nap. It was so gloriously mundane. A nap, in a darkened room in a place where nobody could reach her. Not even Marcus. She felt silly, which was a feeling she very much disapproved of.

 

She wasn’t surprised by the fact that she didn’t fall asleep. She didn’t really want to sleep. Her body needed it, she knew that. Objectively. She barely slept at night, not unassisted anyway, so why would she be able to sleep in the middle of the day. She never took naps. Today, as it turned out, would be no different. She could tinker. She shouldn’t. The whole point of taking a day off was not to work. To do literally anything that wasn’t work. A sort of palate cleanser. Return with a fresh take, a rested mind. A break was not a waste of time, that's what she told herself. Miranda was smart enough to know that objectively taking a break was healthy and good. But then why in the world did it feel so much like a useless waste of her precious time? She’d never been one for naps as a child either, much to the frustration of foster parents across several districts. Nap-time had felt, even to the young Miranda, as an attempt at manipulation. A tool adults used to subdue her, to control her, which of course Miranda didn’t approve of, and she made sure to let her hapless caretakers know how she felt about that tactic. Not with words though.  
The bell rang just as she was putting her eyes back in, having decided that she’d spent enough time pretending to sleep when she very much wasn’t, and she almost put a fist through the control panel of the AI unit, before she remembered that the noise was the door and not the unit, which meant that her food, which she’d somehow forgotten all about, had arrived. She could have really used that nap. She might just have to dig out her bottle of melatonin after all. She made no unnecessary conversation with the delivery person, though not for his lack of trying. She ate in silence and when she was done she got rid of all evidence of her meal.

At what must have been the one hour mark, the AI’s voice broke her trance.

“Doctor Pryce, you’ve received a message from-"

“Let me guess, is it Cutter?”

“It is.”

“Just one message?”

“No.”

“God,” she said. “That man is just like a puppy.”

“How is that?”

“Requires constant attention.”

“You hate animals.”

“What are you implying?”

“Nothing! It’s only, you mentioned once-”

“Just tell me, what does he want?”

“Yes, I’m sorry-”

“Just give me the message. And afterwards, remind me to review your interpersonal programming, I might want to make revisions to the politeness code, I really can’t stand you right now.”

“Yes Dr. Pryce. Of course. I’m sorry.”

“Shut up.”

“Pardon me.”

“For the love of- ugh. Just. Give me. The message.”

What kind of daze had she been in when she’d been wiring this thing’s personality center? It was getting more and more unbearable to listen to. Worse than a dummy program. At least dummy programs didn’t have personalities. Taking a look at a couple of lines of code would give her something to do. She really, really needed something to do. HR. Miranda scoffed. What Miranda really needed was to work. Why in the world did she even agree to this nonsense? What good had taking a break ever done anyone?

**Author's Note:**

> And now that you've made it to the end I really want to say that I've literally never posted anything on here before so if the format is Just Wack that's why. It's because I have absolutely no idea whatsoever what I'm doing. I'm trying though! So thank you so much for reading! I'm really trying! k love u bye
> 
>  
> 
> (I'm on tumblr @ barebevil and on twitter @ kittynorville)


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